This weekend, history will be made when Michigan State travels to Wisconsin to decide the regular-season Big Ten championship.
If the Spartans win, the title will be their first since the Big Ten formed. If the Badgers prevail it will be their second B1G regular-season title, marking the first time that any team other than Minnesota captures multiple season championships.
Minnesota has six. The only team other than Michigan State not to have earned this honor so far is Michigan. Everyone else has one.
That the title comes down to the last weekend of the season has been common enough in the Big Ten. That these two teams, specifically, are competing for it is certainly something to note.
The Spartans finished the 2022-23 season tied for fifth place in the Big Ten with Penn State, and Wisconsin was last season’s last-place team. At the start of this campaign, B1G coaches had Michigan State finishing third and Wisconsin fifth.
Heading into the final series before conference playoffs, not only are Wisconsin and Michigan State top-10 teams in the USCHO.com Poll, but the Badgers and Spartans are high in the PairWise Rankings, Wisconsin tied for third and Michigan State in fifth. There is the potential for each to be a top seed in an NCAA regional.
How did the Spartans and Badgers play their way for the opportunity to capture the regular-season B1G title and first-round playoff bye? Each team’s coach points to a single series that shaped everything that came afterward.
For Michigan State, it was being on the wrong end of a road sweep against Boston College Oct. 26-27. The Spartans followed up those losses with a 14-game span in which they went 10-1-3, the only blemish an overtime loss to Minnesota Nov. 26.
Adam Nightingale brought up the weekend against BC after Michigan State beat Michigan in the annual Duel in the D game in Little Caesar’s Arena Feb. 10. He brought it up again in his press conference this week, noting that the losses to Boston College changed the Spartans’ “approach” to the remainder of the season.
“It was like, it’s simple,” said Nightingale. “We’ve got to get better. They’re better than us. We didn’t lose again until we lost to Michigan in regulation here and got beat good, and then [look at] our response after that.”
That loss to Michigan was Jan. 19, 7-1 and in front of the Munn Arena faithful. The following night, the Spartans overcame a three-goal deficit to beat the Wolverines 7-5 in Yost Arena.
Nightingale points to “the character in the room, the buy-in to” improvement.
“I think that moment was pretty telling of this group,” said Nightingale, whose Spartans are the youngest team in college hockey. “They understood that, hey, we’re not perfect. We’ve got to keep working and getting better.”
The Badgers learned a similar lesson in the first half of the season after being swept by none other than Michigan State.
The Spartans and Badgers first met Nov. 17-18, when Wisconsin was enjoying a 9-1-0 start to the season and a six-game win streak, their most recent being sweeps of Michigan and Minnesota. They lost 4-2 and 3-2 on the road to Michigan State, held to two or fewer goals for the first time since their only previous loss, when North Dakota beat them 2-0 in the Ice Breaker Tournament.
“I remember the games very well,” said Mike Hastings. “They put us on our heels. They pressured us when we had [the puck], they pressured us when they had it, and it was one of the first teams that I thought really kind of put it to us a bit, and we learned and we grew from that.”
The Badgers extended their losing streak to three games with a 1-0 loss to Alaska Anchorage the following weekend but went on to rack up 10 wins in a row after that in an 11-game (10-0-1) unbeaten streak that ended with a 5-1 loss to Michigan Jan. 26. The Badgers rebounded the next night to beat the Wolverines 6-5.
In his weekly press conference, Hastings said that the games against the Spartans were close and that he expects the same this weekend, adding that Michigan State has depth and confidence and that they’re very well coached.
“That series was one we grew from, a negative experience of not being able to get points on the road, said Hastings, “so now I think we’re a different team, but I think State is also.
“Both teams have grown. Some of their drivers are young players, new players, and the longer that those players can play in the spots that they are, they play with a little more confidence. I think both teams are at that spot and you want to have this opportunity at this time of the year. When you play a team like Michigan State, they exposed our weaknesses and I know that they’re going to try to do that again, so we’ll have to be on point.”
Last weekend, the Badgers took five of six points on the road from Penn State and Hastings said he’s “really happy” with how Wisconsin responded to a road sweep against Ohio State the week before. The chance to play for a conference title is new to this squad, though, and much remains to be seen.
“This is our first go-around as a group in this situation, but it’s one we’ve tried to build from [last] summer until right now, to try and be prepared for it,” said Hastings. “All you can do is stay on that and stay on the dailies and just try and maintain consistency, which the group’s done a pretty good job of.”
Nightingale said that high-stakes games like these are what college hockey is all about. “You come to Michigan State, you want to play in games like this. For our guys, we played in the GLI, the championship game there and it didn’t go our way [but] we played really good.
“The Duel in the D is another one. It’s a similar-type feel where it’s a loud crowd, so our guys have had some experience with that. The guys that were in World Juniors have played in those environments, so I think it’s super exciting. This is what you want and now we’ve got to take advantage of it.”
Michigan State has 49 points. Wisconsin has 47. One win outright will give the Spartans the crown. The Badgers need five points total this weekend to capture the title for themselves alone. If the teams tie for points, they’ll share the title but the Spartans will earn the first-round bye in the Big Ten playoffs.
“The opportunity that we have this weekend, that Michigan State has this weekend, those are potentially forever moments,” said Hastings. “They don’t go away. You hang a banner. You become brothers a little bit deeper than just the idea of going out and competing. It’s history.
“So you’d better enjoy it, because I’ve been on the other side of it. That’s not real fun.”
